


Capturing a Fleeting Feeling

by Veskittles



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Is this fluff or angst? Who knows, Light Radiodust, certainly not me, radiodust - Freeform, small mentions of Niffty and Molly I suppose lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21693007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veskittles/pseuds/Veskittles
Summary: After dreaming of a soft fading memory, Angel drags himself over to the kitchen to clear his mind.
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 263





	Capturing a Fleeting Feeling

_ Her smile was unrestrained, framed perfectly in bouncing golden locks. She reached out to him. Her hands were tiny, but so were his. Brushing his own flaxen curls from his eyes, he grabbed her hand and allowed himself to be pulled into the concrete jungle. _

_ Who knows why they left the house? It didn’t really matter. What mattered was how their laughter and footsteps bounced against the brick, how the air seemed almost fresh even if they didn’t truly know how fresh air was meant to taste, how warm it felt to have his hands in hers. _

_ In a sense, they had found what they had been really chasing. Like water, they could only grasp at it before it slipped out of their grips. But for a moment, for a single moment, they had it… _

Angel Dust woke up with a start. Everything was pounding, his head, his stomach, fuck, even his ass. Memories of last night didn’t come flooding to him, and he didn’t care if he never got those memories back. It’s not like it was anything worth remembering. Just the same shit over and over.

But that dream was…

He stumbled out of bed. Water. He needed water. He couldn’t even focus on that dream, or anything, without water. Didn’t people do that thing where they kept a glass of water by their beds? Fuck, he should do that. Would save him having to speak to other demon beings when he was this hungover. Before he made it out, he leant down to pat Nuggets, who was snugly curled up in his little bed, fast asleep. That managed to draw another smile from him, at least, until he had to stand straight again. His whole body complained at the motion, so he had to take a moment before continuing his trek down to the kitchen.

The hotel was quiet. It was some ungodly hour in the morning, so the only people up would be the irritatingly early risers, the leftovers from last night, and those who never slept.

Speaking of irritatingly early risers, Angel was nearly tripped over as Niffty zoomed out from whatever hole she came from and dashed right through his legs. “OI! WATCH IT!” yelled Angel, shaking a fist at her retreating figure. His legs weren’t goalposts, for fucks sake! They were like pillars. Sexy pillars. They deserved some respect, damnit. Angel huffed. Niffty had probably sensed some mess somewhere in this perpetually messy hotel. And she didn’t even say sorry. Not very pro-redemption of her, he thought with a smirk.

Another bout of pounding in his mind washed the smirk away. Water, he needed fucking water.

As soon as he messily poured himself a glass, he collapsed onto a seat. The water felt great down his scratchy throat. The events of last night were being slowly washed away. With arms splayed and eyes shut, he placed the cool glass on his head. Oooo, yeah that was nice…

“Well, don’t you look terrible!”

Oh good, the sounds of an old, shitty radio man were exactly what he needed to soothe his aching head. Angel groaned a lot more dramatically than necessary and didn’t bother opening his eyes. “Fuck off, Smiles. It ain’t the best time.”

“Which means it’s the perfect time to ask you where you’ve been!” Angel could hear him doing something, but honestly, Alastor could have been setting up a Rube Goldberg machine that was designed to splat Angel’s brains all over the wall behind him and he wouldn’t have given a shit. Actually, he would welcome that at this point, if it would stop his brain screaming at him.

“At least quit it with the white noise first. It’s gonna make my brain explode.” Angel made a feeble motion with one of his lower hands, as if he were gesturing at the invisible waves of constant noise that emanated from the other man. Alastor chuckled. Angel could have sworn he made the radio static  _ louder _ . Piece of shit.

There was a clink at the table in front of him. Angel opened an eye. There was a pleasantly coloured glass with an unpleasant odour placed right in front of him. Alastor was seated on the other side of the small table, signature smile plastered onto his face. “Drink up, Angel. Oh, don’t give me that look, dear, it’s not poison! It’s a hangover cure, and I’ve found it to be quite a reliable one!”

Honestly, poison sounded good too. With nothing to lose, Angel scooped up the glass and downed it.

Oh. Well. Whaddya know? Alastor wasn’t bullshitting him, his brain really did calm the fuck down now. He removed the cool cup of water from his head and smirked at Alastor. “Careful Al, keep lookin’ after me and word might get around about you actually being helpful. The  _ infamous _ Radio Demon on the path to redemption, or some shit like that.”

“Hahaha! Now, that certainly would be something, wouldn’t it?” A clipboard appeared in Alastor’s hand. “Now, what excuse do you have for yourself?”

“Eh?” Oh, shit, right, report about what he was doing out or whatever the fuck. Now that his mind had started to clear, his thoughts were wandering back to his dream, so he’d forgotten why Alastor had approached him to begin with. His mind was full of his sister’s infectious joy, and his own breathless laughter and- “I dunno. Just put whatever bullshit you usually put.”

Alastor’s smile shrunk a little. No one thought he actually gave a shit about this whole redemption thing. He came here to be entertained, and that simply wasn’t an entertaining response. He tapped his newly summoned pen on the clipboard. “Now, I can’t write  _ that­ _ , can I?”

“Look, as I said. It ain’t the best time.”

Awkwardness hung between them. Angel sat with one set of arms now crossed. He was here first, he was well within his rights to stay here. Alastor hummed as he thought to himself. “Is something the matter, Angel?”

“Maybe. S’not like you care though.”

“About your feelings? Oh, no, absolutely not! But you look like you want someone to talk to, and I have a craving to be amused. So…” He tossed the clipboard aside and leant forward, making a gesture for him to speak 

Angel rolled his eyes but kept his smirk. What a dickhead. Angel kinda hoped he never changed. He was quiet for a bit, chewing the words in his mouth. “You ever feel nostalgic for shit? Like you remember something that happened aaaages ago, and you think ‘damn, I wish I could feel like that again’?”

“I’ve not thought those precise words, no.” Alastor’s grin grew when Angel shot him an irritated look. “Perhaps I’ve felt some… similar sentiment, though.”

“Yeah well… This is gonna sound sappy as fuck but… I just had a dream about me and Molly. My sis, by the way. We were kids runnin’ through Brooklyn and… I dunno, kinda thought it’d be nice to feel that again.”

“And what feeling would that be, exactly?”

Angel closed his eyes, trying to capture it in one word. His brain sputtered with the effort of trying to define something he’d not felt in almost a century. Fuck, this was exhausting. So, he settled on the closest thing.

“I’d like to feel free.” He cradled the drink in his hands as he looked away, trying to visualise the view from behind his sister as the scenery of the city raced around them. But it was blurry. “S’just been a while since I’ve felt like I could do shit on my own terms, y’know? Just shit like laughing without anyone tellin’ you off, or-” He stopped. Why was he telling this to Alastor? The guy didn’t care. He leaned back in his seat, settling into a practiced smile. “Dumb, right?”

Alastor didn’t reply. His smile had changed so that he wasn’t bearing his teeth anymore, but fucked if Angel could tell what that meant. Guy could be silently laughing at him for all he knew.

Angel slid the empty glass over the table to the other demon. “Whatever. Thanks for the cure, Al. Ya gotta hit me up with that recipe some time. I got places to go, people to do, y’know, all that jazz.” Angel got up and made to leave. It was stupid to even have brought it up. It was a meaningless dream, a memory that meant nothing…

“That feeling isn’t ‘dumb’.”

Angel stopped. He didn’t turn around. “Huh?”

Alastor took that as an invitation to continue. “I don’t need to tell you that we’re all  _ well _ past redemption. However, wanting to experience any fleeting feelings we had in our past lives, it… well, it’s only natural, isn’t it? It’s a mark of our mortal souls, and, though I’m not entirely sure what that is worth, I believe it is worth  _ something _ . So no, Angel, it isn’t ‘dumb’.”

“…” Angel pushed down the warmth welling in his chest. Genuine appreciation really wasn’t part of his shtick, you know? “Man, Smiles, ya really want rumors of you turning good to spread, huh?” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “… I’ll catch ya later.”

With an unspoken word of thanks, a lighter heart, and an extra bounce in his step, Angel left. The peals of unadulterated joy from the mirage of a younger Molly and a younger version of himself echoed in his mind. Huh, seemed like he could remember it much more clearly than he could before.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know man, I just like writing the boiz \o/ Thank you for reading, though! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
